No
sooner did Moscow and Brussels issue numerous reports
stating that they were close to a deal on Russia's
relationship with the new expanded European Union than
Moscow rolled another grenade down the aisle. This
grenade, so to speak, was a denunciation of the EU's
consideration of lifting its sanctions on arms sales to
China.
The sanctions were imposed on China after
the Tiananmen Square massacre of June 1989 and were
intended to reflect the EU's commitment to punish
China's ongoing violation of human rights; the EU also
has a related code of conduct for states wishing to buy
weapons from its members. However, the desire of several
leading members of the EU, notably France and Germany,
to sell arms to China has led them to insist that the EU
review the code. Naturally the prospect of a major
industrial competitor that produces generally superior
products and after-sale services arriving on the scene
is a source of great anguish to Russia's defense and
political elite. If Russian arms manufacturers lose the
Chinese arms market, which consists of about 40 percent
of their export revenues, they will be decisively
crippled.
As it is, defense industries still
represent a highly retrogressive sector in Russia's
economy and still consume too many resources while
returning too few. Despite constant reorganizations,
they remain unable to compete in a truly capitalistic
global market and cannot even satisfy the needs of the
Russian military, which in fact has little money to buy
their products. Thus they are compelled to rely on
exports, with China and India each receiving about 40
percent of those exports annually. Recorded sales to
China amount to about US$2 billion a year (and there may
be more exchanges that analysts have no way of knowing
about since China insists on complete secrecy).
Worse yet, China is gradually moving to buy
fewer weapons as such and more technologies so that it
can build its own systems. India is following suit and
striving mightily to diversify its arms purchases abroad
to the point where Israel might actually soon surpass
Russia as its major seller. Delhi has also made major
deals with Paris, London and Washington. Thus the
magnitude of the blow that could be inflicted upon the
Russian defense sector is enormous and could trigger
substantial negative changes in Russia's critical
relationships with China and India.
Not
surprisingly, Russian spokesmen who denounced the EU's
consideration of an end to sanctions stressed that the
Chinese will not buy EU weapons but is interested only
in what Moscow or Washington can sell them. Since this
denunciation of Brussels took place when the Russian and
Chinese defense ministers were meeting in Beijing,
Russia also again reaffirmed that the military
relationship "is the most important part of the
Chinese-Russian strategic partnership" and that Russia
intends to bring this military cooperation to a new
qualitative level. Obviously this last statement
reflects some concern that China might be dissatisfied
with this aspect of the relationship and that Moscow
knows it. Hence the potential European intervention into
the Chinese market might truly allow China to buy from
Europe, which produces higher-quality goods for the most
part and provides better servicing and repairs, eg the
provision of spares and maintenance assistance.
On the other hand, it may well be true that
China will ultimately not buy much from European arms
producers. Even so, as a customer it obviously benefits
from the perception, if not the reality, that it has
more options than Russia when it comes to buying weapons
and critical technologies. But the rivalry over arms
sales, though important, is not the only issue revealed
by this flare-up. Even as the EU ponders the wisdom and
utility of lifting the sanctions, its agencies continue
to flay Russia, quite rightly, for its abominable
brutality in Chechnya and the growing assault on civil
and human rights in the Russian Federation. So despite
being on the verge of a major economic-political
agreement with Brussels, Moscow still finds itself in
the dock on human rights even though it refuses to
accept European criticisms and standards here.
Yet to its chagrin, China, a considerably
greater offender in this regard, is about to get a
whitewash from Brussels, or at least so it fears. Few
things could be more calculated to offend Russia's
enormous though unmerited and fragile pride. Russia's
self-perception as a great global and particularly
European power suffers when it is held up negatively to
China. Russia's always fragile identity as a great
European state thus takes another blow where it can
least afford it, namely in comparison with an Asian
state that is greatly disliked if not feared in Russia.
Not surprisingly, it reacts strongly to such slights,
but in fact there is little it can do in a practical
sense.
One suspects that the government in
Moscow realizes that it needs Brussels more than
Brussels needs to honor it given the fact that the EU is
Russia's largest trading partner and considerably
stronger than it. But the insult to its pride and the
fear of possible negative consequences should China
prevail here obliges Moscow to act in this manner.
Clearly more is at stake for Russia than just arms sales
to China. Its standing in Europe and in its own eyes is
in some degree implicated here.
China, for its
part, clearly is pushing the EU to lift the sanctions,
though many observers think that when the meetings take
place in Luxembourg, which are scheduled to begin on
Monday, this will not occur. As we have noted, China
clearly stands to gain not only much broader and greater
entry into the European defense and technology sector
from the end of sanctions. It gains a new buyer, easing
the pressure put on it by the United States, which
remains an outspoken supporter of the sanctions. Thus it
takes a major step to realizing its long-held aspiration
for an international order in which Washington cannot
constrain Beijing's opportunities to expand its power.
Economically China as customer benefits from having the
option of many potential sellers whom it can then
manipulate with regard to specifications, price and the
transfer of technology to China so that it can then
build its own indigenous facilities for producing these
weapons. This, after all, is what has begun to happen
with the systems Russia has sold it. Therefore its
government can echo, along with Moscow, the centrality
of the arms-sales relationship to their partnership
because it gains more leverage thereby on Moscow, which
must scramble to offer better terms than will the
Europeans.
Finally, the EU's position is no less
interesting. The desire to sell arms to China has been
pushed by France and Germany, both of which are seeking
markets to revitalize their own defense industries.
France, as always, has a broader agenda. It has
essentially kow-towed to China over Taiwan with
President Jacques Chirac publicly warning Taipei not to
provoke Beijing, and doing so in talks with the Chinese
government, a clearly insulting gesture to Taipei.
Chirac and his government also want to challenge
Washington in Asia, hence France's and the EU's
initiatives vis-a-vis the Korean Peninsula and now with
China. As for human rights, undoubtedly Moscow has a
point that lifting the sanctions while criticizing
Russia for Chechnya epitomizes hypocrisy. But after all,
this is what governments, in this case France, do. Not
for nothing did a French moralist, Francois, duc de La
Rochefoucauld, offer the classic definition of hypocrisy
as the tribute that vice pays to virtue. But as Paris
repeatedly shows, in pursuit of its self-interest it is
no less zealous than Washington, which it regularly
flays for unilateralism. If French self-interest decrees
flouting EU agreements, so be it. This has already
occurred with economic targets and budget deficits, so
the sanctions are also fair game as France and Germany
are both eager to get into the Chinese market by any
means possible.
Indeed, even though the
Luxembourg meeting will likely not produce an agreement
on the terminating of sanctions, but more probably a
decision to consult international armament experts to
determine whether the code of conduct that governs them
needs to be revised, the trend is clearly toward
revision of the code to permit sales. It is true that
any initiative to sell China arms and to lift the
sanctions will encounter strong US opposition. Likewise
Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands all strongly oppose
lifting sanctions and argue that China must do much more
to comply with human-rights standards before the
sanctions are lifted.
However, even if sanctions
are not formally lifted this would not necessarily
forbid the sale of weapons to China. In fact, the
criteria of the code of conduct that govern the terms
under which sanctions are applied are open to
interpretation by the member states' own governments.
Therefore in practice the EU Council in Brussels could
not stop sales from going through if a member state
decided that the criteria of the code of conduct do not
apply to the systems it proposes to sell to China. Hence
the code of conduct is only as strong as its
interpretation and the will of governments to hold by
it.
Clearly both Washington and Moscow have
solid reasons for opposing the termination of the
sanctions. Russia's criticisms have solid interests as
well as psychological merit behind them and the United
States' objections are based on solid geostrategic
criteria. But in the end they probably will not matter,
since this appears to be another opportunity for Paris
to assert its own self-interest and to employ its
long-standing tactic of using Brussels to cloak its
pursuit of the national interest in terms of European
objectives. But the dangers involved in fueling the
growth and sophistication of China's military machine
should give the EU pause, especially as neither Russia
nor China is moving to improve its democratic
credentials.
The EU's credibility as a force for
democracy and peace that it so loudly trumpets abroad is
already under severe attack because of its general
preference for rhetoric over action and its support of
Palestinian terrorism. The new agreements with Russia
and any lifting of sanctions upon China will only
strengthen regimes that are recognized as in some
measure to be performing below acceptable standards of
human rights and which are seen as threats to their
neighbors' security. It will be difficult for the EU to
increase its credibility and standing after inflicting
upon itself two such unnecessary wounds.
Undoubtedly Moscow will benefit by its new
agreement with Brussels given the large-scale economic
and political issues at stake there. And equally
certainly, any relaxation of the code of conduct will
greatly benefit China. But do these agreements, in the
absence of better performance by the governments in
Moscow and Beijing, benefit the EU or international
security? Unfortunately, Brussels has yet to give a
satisfying answer to that question.
Stephen Blank is an independent
analyst of international security affairs living in
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
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